WebUI -- index.htm creation

Authoring TADS
1

Disclaimer – apparently, I was successful in creating a WebUI game for the 2017 IFComp. I must have purged all relevant knowledge from that experience the last couple of years, but I digress.

So my current WIP started well before 2017 and I recently converted it to be WebUI enabled. I got through the compile errors and am using best practice as described in the recent threads here. I still have to figure out how to redo the banner stuff, but one problem at a time. My issue is with the creation of the index.htm file that gets put into the web folder.

I know that it gets a lot of info from gameinfo.txt but there is some info that is appearing from my 2017 entry and I don’t know where it’s getting it from. I checked the build setting and the workbench setting, but everything points to my current WIP and not my 2017 entry.

Here are the steps in order:
Clean (Delete Derived Files)
Compile for Release
Build Web Page Package

Here is the info in gameinfo.txt:

IFID: c5acb91f-891d-33b5-ccf9-2810d279826d
Name: Chaos
Byline: by Robb Sherwin & Mike Sousa
HtmlByline: by Robb Sherwin and Mike Sousa
AuthorEmail: Robb Sherwin robb.sherwin@gmail.com & Mike Sousa mike67@gmail.com
Desc: Chaos
HtmlDesc: Chaos
Version: 1.0 – 20201231
ReleaseDate: 2020-04-22
LicenseType: Freeware
CopyingRules: Nominal cost only; compilations allowed
PresentationProfile: Default

and this is the resulting index.htm file in the web folder:

<html> 
<head> 
<title>Chaos</title> 
<link rel=stylesheet href="storyweb.css"> 
</head>
<body> 
<h1>Chaos</h1><table width=100%><tr valign=top> 
<td> 
<p><table><tr valign=top><td class=coverart> <a href="edgesplash01.jpg"> <img width=175 height=175 src="edgesplash01.jpg" border=0> </a>
<td>
<b>by <a href="mailto:robb.sherwin@gmail.com"> Robb Sherwin</a> and <a href="mailto:mike67@gmail.com"> Mike Sousa</a></b><br>
<br><span class=details>
Released April 22, 2020<br>
<br><a href="http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?ifid=c5acb91f-891d-33b5-ccf9-2810d279826d" ><b><i>Chaos</i> on IFDB</b></a>
(Available after the 2017 IFComp)<br>
<br><span class=notes>
License: Freeware<br>
IFID: c5acb91f-891d-33b5-ccf9-2810d279826d<br>
</span></span></table>
<p>Chaos
<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    <td width=280 align=right>
    <table class=downloads width="100%">
    <tr><td>
<br><p><center><a href="http://gs.tads.io/?storyfile=http%3A%2F%2Fmike.tads.cz%2FFakeNews-WEB.t3"><h1>PLAY ONLINE</h1></a></center>
<span class=notes><center>Version 1.0 -- 20201231</center></span>
<br>
<tr height=*> </table> </table>  <br><br><br><br> <span class=notes> <i>Chaos</i> was created with <a href="http://www.tads.org">TADS</a> version 3.
     </body>
    </html>

So the “Available after the 2017 IFComp” text appears from somewhere as does the FakeNews-WEB.t3 reference and where it was hosted during the IFComp in 2017 that is stored in the Play Online button:

http://gs.tads.io/?storyfile=http%3A%2F%2Fmike.tads.cz%2FFakeNews-WEB.t3

I know it’s probably something obvious, but geez this has me stumped. Where do I change that info? :slight_smile:

2

OK, so I figured this out. And a big old Ugh to my 2017 self, who apparently hacked something last minute to modify the index.htm creation a few days before Fake News was entered into the IFComp.

The solution is this.

index.htm is created by the mkweb.t module in the Tads 3\mkwebfiles folder. I had made some changes in there that I completely forgot about. I’m sure there is a much more eloquent way of doing what I did, but at least I solved it.

3 Likes
3

Along the same lines, it looks like WebUI won’t work if the story file is on an https link. It requires an http one. Does anyone know of a fix or workaround for this?

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